What to do to be saved by God

But what is the jailer told to do? God's answer to man's query is exquisite in its simplicity. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house," falls on the ears of the awakened sinner. How divinely simple. He had only to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and he would be a saved man. There is no word of anything that he must do in order to get salvation. This is a gospel that exactly meets helpless sinners without strength, and no wonder the jailer believed at once. His conversion was a rapid one indeed. One minute asleep in his sins, the next awake and deeply anxious about these sins — and straightway thereafter he hears the gospel and believes it, and rejoices in God with all his house.

When the question, "What must I do to be saved?" rang from the agonised lips of the prison warder at Philippi, the inspired answer did not bid him pray, or strive, or make vows, or anything of that sort. He was told to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. Nothing that he could do could secure God's salvation. The doing had all been done by Christ. All that is left for the sinner is the appropriation of the results of His mighty work by simple faith.

Will you believe in Him? I ask you, Will you believe in the Son of Man? I think you will feel an awful fool by-and-by, when the Lord has to say of you — There is a man who would not trust Me, there is a man who would not believe in Me. Note that Gods says that "whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Mark, it is an absolute present possession, the possession of faith. Eternal life is the gift of God. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Oh, that is a beautiful verse, the 16th verse of John 3. Look at it. It begins with God, and ends with life. You cannot get life save from God, but "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but HAVE everlasting life." You may have it. I have it. You have in this verse God's side of the action, and man's side also. God's side, loving and giving; and on man's side — my, and your side — believing and having. Really, my dear fellows, the gospel is wonderfully simple. God, loving, and giving; and man, believing, and having. I believe His love, I believe His grace, I believe what He says, I believe on His Son, and what is the result? I get eternal life as His own free gift.

This, then, is the answer to your question: if you want to be saved, you must believe on God's Son. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." Mark you! it is Christ, you must know. It is the Person of Christ who is the object of belief, the object of faith. Christ, personally, is the object of the soul's faith, and the one who believes in Him gets the benefit of all the work He has done. I do not agree at all with an old woman, in Arran, who said to a friend of mine, who was pressing the gospel on her, "You make far o'er muckle o' that word, believe, believe." That let out a great deal. You cannot make too much of believing. If Christ has not hitherto been the object of your faith, may God give you now to believe on His blessed Son, and you will get what the jailor got. "Thou shalt be saved," is God's assurance to the believing soul.

The writer says, "I know that the Bible says, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to be saved." The scripture says this, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." (Acts 16:31.) It is not enough to know that the Bible says so; the devils know that well enough, and the infidel knows that. But does the writer know that God says so — that it is God speaking to us in the Bible? Now, if God says so, is it not true? Then if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as a lost sinner, God speaks to you; He says you shall be saved. Do you doubt Him? The jailor understood it to mean just what God said, and he was baptized at once. He raised no questions; "he rejoiced, believing in God with all his house." If he believed and rejoiced, why should you doubt?

The answer to the jailor's question is simple in this case, an answer that can only be appreciated by one who realizes himself to be guilty or lost, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved and thy house" (v.31). The Lord had deeply worked in the man's soul to bring him to genuine repentance. This is always necessary if there is to be any desire for or knowledge of salvation. Faith in the Lord Jesus would save him, not only from his own guilt, but from the ungodly world with which he was identified, and would save his house from this situation too. The fact of his being brought to God puts his entire house in a sanctified (or separated) position, as 1 Corinthians 7:14 plainly teaches. In this way the house is saved, though it remains imperative that each individual in the house must personally receive the Lord Jesus in order to have eternal salvation.

Why do Paul and Silas treat him otherwise than our Lord dealt with the two cases already considered? The answer in each case meets the moral condition of the questioner. But Paul and Silas are able to direct the jailor instantly to Christ, because he came in the moral condition set forth by the dying man in the parable. And hence if any of my readers are putting this same question, they cannot be answered until they take the same place. This truth has already been insisted on in the second chapter; but we again emphasize it here. For until the lesson is learnt the way of salvation cannot be known. Are you then, beloved readers, recognizing, not only that you can bring nothing to God, that even the things that might be a gain to you amongst men are worthless before Him, but also that you are sinners, and as such lost and undone; that therefore you can do nothing towards your salvation, and that if you are saved, it must be by the work and grace of another? If you are, we can then unfold to you the blessed truth, contained in the words, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved" (v. 31).

He was just at the doorway, and he "sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas; and brought them out." And at that moment there burst from the lips of the awakened man, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" Who had said a word to him about salvation? Who had said a word to him about his sins? Who told the man that he was lost? Who pressed upon him the necessity for salvation? God can do a wonderful work in a very short time; and even this night, since you came into this meeting, I trust He has wrought in your souls, to make you feel that you need salvation. "What must I do to be saved?" is a wonderful query. He had received light from God, and the first discovery in his soul was this, I am a lost man; and so he cried, "What must I do to be saved?"

Have you ever taken your place before God with a query like that? Have you — let me affectionately ask you — ever put such a query as that? Have you ever, in the presence of God, asked, "What must I do to be saved?" If you have not, I believe the truth is that you have not discovered what the jailor discovered, that you are a lost soul. Oh! may God show you that you are a lost sinner, and give you grace to turn to Him with a similar query; that is to get light, and knowledge, and salvation. "What must I do to be saved?" is the sinner's inquiry. How beautiful is God's answer! "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." How charming is that answer! Was he to do some great thing? No! He was to believe the good news of the love of God, made manifest in His precious Son. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house." There was not one word about works; works come in, in their proper place: there is no doubt about that, — in the history of the Christian. But you do not work in order to be saved. As the hymn puts it —

Of old God brought His commandment very near to Israel that they might do it. He has brought His word even nearer to us in Christ. It is now not a word of what we ought to do, but of what Christ has done, and of what He Himself has done in raising Christ from the dead. On our part the word only demands that we believe with the heart that God has raised Him from the dead, and that we confess Him as Lord with our mouths. When heart and mouth thus go together there is of course reality. Real subjection to Jesus as Lord carries with it salvation.

It is the testimony of the Lord. I must stress that first of all. What does the title mean? It means His authority, His absolute rights over us; He is sovereign Lord. And we are not faithful to the colours if we are not owning that and carrying it out in practical living. "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in thy heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." That means open and definite subjection to His will, and rallying to the colours. It was what Saul of Tarsus did when he cried: "Lord, what will Thou have me to do?" But who would not be subject to Him whose love for us surpasses all our knowledge and whose will and way for us is our greatest blessing?